Move us from ‘jinx’ house, a family begs.
‘Doomed if we stay at No. 113’
A mother of ten children has asked Kidderminster Corporation to find the family another home because she believes their present council house – No. 113, Walter Nash Road – is subject to a malevolent influence. “I am convinced we are doomed if we stay in this house,” said 45-year-old Mrs Beatrice Bowers last night. “There is some sort of a jinx on the place.”
In the three years they have lived at No. 113, members of the family have heard unexplained footsteps, and seen doors open and close on their own. “There is a history of tragedy about the house, and the four families who have lived in it,” said Mrs Bowers, who pays a rent of £3 114s 9d a week for the three-bedroom house on Birches Coppice Estate, Kidderminster. The misfortunes of the Bowers family since moving in have included the death of Mrs Bower’s 23-year-old son, Terry, a month ago. He was drowned in a bathing accident in Devon. Another son, 19-year-old John, is critically ill in hospital after a motor cycle smash. The youngest son, Anthony, has recently been stricken with an eye disease. The doctors’ verdict: “Nothing can be done to save his sight.” Eldest daughter Rosalie, now married, left home and disappeared. The family do not know where she is. “We are desperately trying to find her,” said Mrs Bowers.
Eldest son Rex, a carpet cutter, is just as convinced as his mother that the house spells misfortune for them. He said: “I have lived in houses in Kidderminster for 14 years and this is the first one to have affected me like this. I have heard footsteps in the bathroom at night for which there has been no explanation, and when you are watching television doors open and there is nobody there, although you feel that there is. If we stay here, I have the feeling something terrible will happen to us.”
His sister Jacqueline, aged 21, married and living a seven-penny bus ride away, said: “I wouldn’t stay a whole night in that house for all the money in the world. I have heard the footsteps and it has frightened me to death. It is evil.”
Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 10th April 1966.
Young couple defy the evil spirit at No. 113.
A young married couple have been looking for signs of an evil spirit since they moved into their Kidderminster council house home. But after nine nights at No. 113, Walter Nash Road, Mr and Mrs John Noble have found no evidence of the malevolent influence which the previous tenants claimed was haunting the house. “We have not seen or heard anything since we moved here,” said 20-year-old Mrs Noble last night. “We have turned the television off at night and listened, but it’s so quiet that you can hear a pin drop.”
The previous tenant, 45-year-old Mrs Beatrice Bowers, claimed there was a “jinx” on the house. She and her family said that they heard unexplained footsteps, saw doors open and close, and had been dogged by bad luck while they had lived there. “I think it is more imagination than anything,” said Mrs Noble. She and her 24-year-old husband, who have a 14-month-old baby, moved into No. 113 from a condemned house in Kidderminster. “The council gave us a choice of three houses, and this one was the best,” she said.
Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 28th August 1966.